Marine with Sun (Marine mit Sonne) 1918

Lyonel Feininger made this woodcut, Marine with Sun, with ink on paper. The strong contrast between black and white gives a powerful graphic quality, and the angular lines lend a sense of dynamism to the scene, as if the sea and sky are fractured. The texture is particularly interesting; the rough, almost scratchy quality of the black ink gives the impression of a surface worn by the elements. Look closely at the way the lines converge towards the top right; it's as if the sun isn't just shining, but actively breaking apart the world, fragmenting it into geometric shards. This reminds me of cubist paintings, where artists like Picasso and Braque were similarly dissecting and reassembling reality. There's a sense here of the artist grappling with how to represent something as vast and ever-changing as the sea. Perhaps this print is Feininger's attempt to capture the essence of a fleeting moment, the feeling of being at sea, in a language that's both abstract and deeply felt.